"Poor old Brenton!" he said slowly. "It was a conjugal I-told-you-so,
coming back to him as a message out of the misty borderland he's tried
so hard to penetrate."
Later, that same day, Olive dropped in on Reed again. She was lonely,
she claimed, without her father, restless and nervous from thinking
much about the Brentons, wondering what Brenton himself would do. And
Reed, who had grown eager at her coming, felt his eagerness departing
while he listened to her second reason. Even his courage recognized the
fact that there were limits to his strength. It seemed to him quite
intolerable that he must lie there and smile, and assent politely to
the divagations of Olive concerning Brenton's future plans. Besides,
loyal as he was to Olive, Reed was conscious of a little disappointment
that a girl, even as uncompromisingly downright as she, should be quite
so prompt in expressing interest in Brenton's future.
But Olive, noticing his reticence, laid it only to the exhaustion of a
hideously rainy day, and talked on steadily. What Reed did not know
till later was that her steady monologue was designed to cover up her
real intention for just a little while, that she might gain time to
stiffen to the resolution she had taken. The resolution had been
growing up in her for weeks; it had come to its climax, only that very
morning, when she had met Ramsdell on the Opdyke steps.
"How is Mr. Opdyke?" she had queried.
Then she had caught her breath at Ramsdell's answer.
"Rather poorly, Miss Keltridge."
She cast a hasty glance upward, to assure herself that Reed's windows
were not open.
"What do you mean?" she demanded sharply then.
Ramsdell looked down upon her gloomily.
"That I'm uneasy, Miss Keltridge. There's no one thing the matter, and
yet Mr. Hopdyke does seem to be losing ground. It's 'is ambition runs
away with all 'is strength. As long as he kept still on his back, 'e
gained. But now 'e seems to be trying to get hout of bed and leave his
back be'ind 'im, as that 'ealing woman told him; and, like all of us,
he isn't meant to cast off his own spinal column, bad as 'tis. His work
won't 'urt 'im, if he takes it quiet; but, as a nurse trained in the
Royal 'Ospital, I must hinsist it is bad for any man to try to do
Delsarte gymnastics on a hempty stomach of a morning."
Despite her consternation, Olive laughed.
"Can't you make him stop it, Ramsdell?"
"Impossible, Miss Keltridge. When it comes to that I'm nothing but
another man. What Mr. Hopdyke needs now is a woman to manage 'im and
cocker 'im up a bit. In spite of all his work and that, he's away off
on 'is nerve."
"How does he show it, Ramsdell?" Olive asked, a little faintly, for
there was that in the whites of the great black eyes which made her
painfully aware that Ramsdell was not talking quite at random, and she
disliked to feel that even those dog-like eyes, devoted though they
were to Reed, had penetrated the secret of her woman's nature.
Ramsdell's reply refreshed her by its very lack of sentiment.
"When 'e's feeling fit, Miss Keltridge, 'e swears something glorious.
Nowadays, it's as much as he can do to trump up henergy to let off a
single damn. There! He's calling!" And Ramsdell vanished in the
direction of the stairs.
Left to herself, Olive tramped home as if the seven-league boots had
been upon her feet. Once at home, for some reason only known to
womankind, she elected to sweep and dust the library with her own
hands, and then to scour the brasses of the fireplace. Half through the
second operation, though, she hesitated, paused, stopped short and
threw aside her cloth and pinafore. Leaving them for the maids to
discover and gather up at will, she went to her room, arrayed herself
immaculately and quite regardless of the weather, and once more sallied
out in search of Reed. While she was going up the Opdyke stairs,
however, she suddenly became aware that she had nothing to say to him
which would account for her suddenly renewed desire for his society.
Accordingly, she talked of Brenton till Reed's soul was weary. Then,
with a sudden flounce, she brought the talk around to Reed himself.
"How many mines have you added to your list, to-day?" she asked him.
Reed heaved a short sigh of relief, not out of egotism, but merely to
be freed from further talk concerning Brenton.
"Only one."
"That's unusual. Still, I am rather glad it happens so. Ramsdell is
convinced that you are working too hard, in this impossible weather."
"Ramsdell is a chronic grumbler," Reed said disloyally. "I'm all right,
Olive."
She bent forward, her elbows on her knees, and stared down at him
intently.
"I'm not too sure of that, Reed. You are growing thin, and you look
tired. No wonder, from what Mr. Duncan has told us. Is it quite worth
while, though?"
"It is."
"But why?" she urged, with sudden recklessness of any pain her
insistence might be causing him.
He reddened.
"Let's leave the dead past out of it, Olive. What's the use of going
over the old ground again? You know my one ambition is to make whatever
is left of my life a gift worth while."
"Gift?" she queried steadily. "To whom, Reed?"
"Its Creator, when the time comes," he answered, with the slow
difficulty with which a strong man always touches such a theme. "Who
else?"
His sudden question, answering as it did to her own thoughts, astounded
her. Her face flushed, lighted, filled itself with a dazzling radiance
which, for the moment, Reed was powerless to interpret. For just that
single moment, Olive caught in her breath and held it. Then,--
"Why, to me," she answered simply. "Reed dear, you have made it
wonderfully well worth the asking. May I have it for my very own?"
Fifteen minutes later on, Ramsdell came up the stairs. When he had gone
down them stealthily and tiptoed through the lower hall, he wiped his
eyes, then blew his nose in raucous triumph.
"The one thing I 'ave halways 'oped would 'appen!" he said
impressively.
Four days afterward, Brenton came home again, came straight from the
burial service on the country hillside to take up his old life in the
wifeless home. As a matter of course, his first evening he spent with
Opdyke.
Opdyke, looking for change in him, was not disappointed. Change was
evident, and of a sort for which Opdyke had scarcely dared to hope. Of
sadness there was curiously little sign; the black band on his sleeve
was the only outward show of mourning, and Brenton's face explained the
lack. Even in the few days of his new experience, the old indecision
seemed to have left his face for ever, and with it much of the old
sadness. He carried himself more alertly, too, as if, for the future,
life were too full of purpose to permit of any indecision or delay.
Of his trouble, he said singularly little.
"Poor Catie! She died, loyal to me, and happy in her belief," he told
Reed briefly. "It was the end she would have chosen for herself. Next
time we meet each other, though, we shall understand each other better
and have better patience." And that was all he said, then or
afterwards. Instead, he congratulated Reed upon his new, great
happiness.